The following singular instance of the far-sighted watchfulness of the mother turkey over her young is told by a French priest. “I have heard,” he says, “a mother turkey, when at the head of her brood, send forth the most hideous scream, without being able to see any cause for it. Her young ones, however, the moment the warning was given, hid under the bushes, the grass, or whatever else seemed to offer shelter or protection. They even stretched themselves at full length on the ground, and lay as motionless as if dead.

In the meantime, the mother, with her eyes directed upward, kept up her cries and screaming as before. On looking up in the direction in which she seemed to gaze, I discovered a black spot just under the clouds, but was unable at first to decide what it was. However, it soon appeared to be a bird of prey, though at first at too great a distance to be distinguished. I have seen one of those mother turkeys continue in this agitated state for four hours at a stretch, and her whole brood pinned down to the ground, as it were, the whole of that time, while their foe has taken its circuits, has mounted and hovered directly over their heads. When he, at last, disappeared, the mother changed her note and sent forth a different sort of cry, which in an instant gave life to the whole trembling brood, and they all flocked round her with expressions of pleasure, as if conscious of their happy escape from danger.”